One Month of Summer
by CatsOnMars
Summary: An answer to the question of what exactly happened while Julia was on Callisto that shows a different side of both Gren and Julia.


Author`s Note: This is a quickie that I coughed up after I`d been waiting for an idea for my second fanfic and then I saw Jupiter Jazz parts 1 and 2 for the first time (Yes, I am very behind as far as seeing all of the episodes). I wrote it in a few days but it is proofread and all that. All I have to say is I know that the war on Titan is supposed to have happened *before* Spike and Vicious worked together in the Red Dragon...but let`s pretend for a while!  
  
Disclaimer: I have to give credit to Janeth Rhian for her Cowboy Bebop fan fiction "Musicbox", which this story is based and inspired on. There are ideas in this story that are original but without reading hers I never would have had the inspiration to write this. Her fanfic is a very good Julia/Gren story that I read before I even knew who Gren was and then already knew I was going to love him. I highly recommend reading it.  
  
It was no secret that everyone at the Blue Crow was in love with Julia. Even the most uncompassionate thiefs, gangsters, and murderers hiding out in the dangerous town wouldn`t have harmed her for the world. She must have known this somehow, to come to the Blue Crow of all places and feel perfectly safe there. She seemed almost naive that way; that was why everybody loved her. They loved her because she was in love, because she carried something in her that seemed to melt the ice of the cold- hearted surface of Callisto. Something that melted their hearts that had been frozen from living on this moon for too long. Nobody was happy on Callisto. Nobody chose to come to Callisto, but she didn`t seem to mind it there, nor take much notice of the fact that she was the only woman within tens of miles.  
  
She came into the same club every night and sat at the same barstool. Everybody who ever went into the club knew Julia, and knew that the second barstool from the end was where she sat, and only her. She would come in every night around seven with snow in her hair like parmesan sprinkled in angel hair pasta, and the snow would gradually melt into her gold strands under the heat of Gren`s saxophone music, the lulling tunes vibrating across the room like humid ocean waves.  
  
Gren was the only person at the Blue Crow that she could really call a friend. This was because in many ways they shared the same pain. To be exact, their wounds had been left by the same person.  
  
The first time she had gone into the Lester House everyone had stared at her, watching her steps and her every movement, drawn to her like she was a light glowing at the end of a tunnel that someone sees before dying. Gren was playing sax on stage and was the only one who didn`t notice the instant she came inside. He was playing none other than the tune that haunted his dreams, a ghost that had stopped inhabiting the music box and now lived in him, pouring out through his saxophone whenever it wished. Julia knew the song right away. She had taken the music box from Vicious`s nightstand one night and laid in bed turning it very slowly beside her ear, so slowly that the song changed to be deformed and sad, as Spike walked somewhere in the streets outside her window. Vicious hadn`t come back yet. When he walked into the bedroom would he know who had been there?  
  
When Gren finished the song he found himself confronted with a pair of smoldering eyes looking straight at him. No, not at him. Inside him. Past him. There were tears in them trying to get out. He immediately felt her eyes penetrating his heart, making him sad in a way he couldn`t describe.  
  
When he finished playing and was leaving the club, his pace slowed slightly when he walked past where the woman sat. She knew he was behind her, and said one word to him when he passed. "Julia."  
  
He stopped. "What?"  
  
She turned in her seat and faced him. "That song. It`s called 'Julia', didn`t you know?"  
  
"...Yeah. I mean yeah, I knew that. How do you...?"  
  
"That`s my name, you know," she said. "Julia. I used to hear that song on a music box. It belonged to someone I knew."  
  
Gren stared at her for a moment, wondering. "I`ll bet you a drink that I can guess that person`s name."  
  
She smiled. "You won`t."  
  
"I could. There are only so many common names."  
  
"No one else has his name," she said.  
  
"See? You told me it was a man."  
  
"I`ll also tell you that he`s twenty-four. You still won`t get it."  
  
"Let`s see," Gren said, pretending to think. "A man who had a music box. Would be twenty-four now...His name would have to be Vicious."  
  
She didn`t look surprised. Just a little sad. He knew that she had expected him to guess the name right. They both knew there was only one way anyone could have heard that song before.  
  
Gren didn`t have to look around to know that everyone in the club was watching them. He whispered to Julia, "How about having that drink at my place? Just to talk, nothing else. I promise."  
  
"I shouldn`t trust people who know Vicious," she said quietly.  
  
"Neither should I."  
  
Of course she went with him, because he was so easy to trust, and because there was nothing that scared her anymore. He gave her something to drink and for a while they said nothing about Vicious. Then he showed her the music box and started telling her about everything. The war on Titan. Being in prison. The medication he started taking. She held the musix box in her palm like it scared her, not turning the knob, and then set it on the coffee table where it sat silently.  
  
"...When he gave me that I thought...you know, it meant something. We looked out for eachother in that war. And then I heard it might have been him that testified against me. But I don`t know how he could do that. I don`t know why he would."  
  
Julia looked very sad and sorry, almost not wanting to say anything in response. And then she said, "There`s something you should know, Gren. He`s evil. Vicious is evil." She said it in a tone that she might have used to tell him that someone had died.  
  
Gren had been standing and not looking right at her, and now he turned to face her. "So that`s it? You just think he`s completely evil and that`s all there is to it?"  
  
"For your sake, I hope he`s not," she said sincerely. But from her regretting expression he knew she didn`t believe it could be true.  
  
"But you doubt him."  
  
"Well, have you even looked in the music box?"  
  
"What are you saying?"  
  
"Did you ever think about breaking it open, seeing if there`s something inside?"  
  
Gren said nothing, not wanting to think about that. "You sound like you think you know him very well."  
  
"I did know him very well."  
  
"What are you, a sister he never talked about?"  
  
She smiled unhappily. "No." She reached into her coat pocket and took out a cigarette. "He was my lover."  
  
The next day she came into the club again, and she and Gren talked again, about less serious subjects. That night, alone in his apartment, he broke the music box open to look inside of it. The next day he went to Julia and told her she had been right.  
  
A month went by, and the men at Lester House became more familiar with Julia. When that happened she and Gren started to always sit at the bar and talk after he was done playing. They were friends but they secretly contemplated one another. Julia felt sorry that Gren had been so alone his whole life that he was this attached to the idea that Vicious may not have betrayed him and had actually been a companion. Gren could only wonder what her story with Vicious had been; she had absolutely no faith that there could be some good in him, and he knew she was sure that Vicious had put him in jail. But him and Julia had been lovers before...It didn`t fit together at all.  
  
He started to understand it more when she first talked about Spike.  
  
"Julia?" he asked her once when she was at his place, sitting silently.  
  
"What, Gren?"  
  
"Why are you so sad? You hide it, but I know you are all the time. What are you doing here?"  
  
She just lowered her head and put out her cigarette, staying silent.  
  
"Did he hurt you?" Gren asked.  
  
Julia thought. Saying no would be lying. Of course he had hurt her, in many ways. He had put a gun to her head and threatened her. He had said he would kill her if she didn`t do what he asked. "...Yes."  
  
Gren had always felt a potentially strong anger against Vicious. He felt it burn now, looking at her. "You`re still in love with him, aren`t you?"  
  
Julia closed her eyes and shook her head. "No." She put her legs up across his couch. "Gren, say you found out for certain that Vicious really had betrayed you. Do you think you would have any faith in things like friendship from then on?"  
  
"I..." He was caught off guard by the question. "I don`t know."  
  
"Vicious doesn`t believe in anything. He was betrayed, and now he is evil, if he wasn`t evil before. And it`s my fault. It`s my fault he couldn`t be a friend to you. He is incapable of friendship, and it`s because of me."  
  
"You betrayed him?"  
  
"...We both did, in a way. Me and Spike."  
  
Gren went quiet, suddenly understanding everything a lot more.  
  
After a long moment of silence Julia spoke again, quietly, as if she was talking to herself. "He had eyes that were different colors, you know. Such strange eyes. You got a weird feeling, if you looked into them for a long time...It was like he could see things you would never be able to see. In fact, he told me once..." She stopped. "Never mind. It`s silly."  
  
"So why aren`t you with him?" Gren asked.  
  
"Why aren`t you with anyone?"  
  
Gren looked down, sighing, almost shamefully. "I could never be with someone. I can never be close to anyone again. I`m not like anybody else."  
  
"You don`t think someone could love you anyway?"  
  
"No one ever has."  
  
Julia smiled that sad smile. Then she stood up, walked over to him, and kissed him on the cheek with her hands placed gently on his shoulders. It hurt like a drop of warm water after being in the cold for hours. He found himself almost unable to move.  
  
"You shouldn`t give up, Gren. Maybe if I had my heart left to give you I could save you myself, but you just have to believe. Don`t dwell on the past. It has destroyed me."  
  
She left his apartment. And then he never saw her again.  
  
Gren played sax at the club every night and Julia`s barstool remained unoccupied. Nobody knew where Julia had gone, and they all secretly thought that Gren might know, but never asked him. Eventually people started sitting in her seat again, and each time Gren looked up as if it might be her.  
  
Two years went by in which Gren could only reflect on his time knowing Julia and wonder where she was. Maybe it was because she`d been the only female he`d seen for years, and also been one of the most beautiful women he had ever known. Or maybe it was the way she had talked about Spike, the way she talked about being with someone. But something about Julia had sparked desires in his heart. Something about her made him want when he looked at her without even knowing what he wanted. Maybe he had loved her but it didn`t matter because she never could have been with him. And now she was gone.  
  
And then one day another person walked into his life who would remind him of Julia. A woman who would remind him of her when she looked at him with a similar sadness in her eyes, and when he could sense an absence of love in her life just like he could with Julia. An aura they both carried of being untouched and solitary, even though they were both so beautiful that anyone would have wanted to touch them. Almost as if they knew the same person, just as he and Julia had both known Vicious. Maybe she even loved the same person as Julia, but distantly and unspokenly. Distantly and unspokenly, the only way Gren would ever love anyone.  
  
For one night he was playing the song from the music box on his saxophone, and when he stopped and looked up there was a woman sitting in Julia`s seat. 


End file.
